


If you meet the Batman on the road

by thatfangirl



Category: Birds of Prey (Comic)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatfangirl/pseuds/thatfangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the disastrous events at Platinum Flatts and Bludhaven, Barbara Gordon decides to try something new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you meet the Batman on the road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anathomical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anathomical/gifts).



> Set post–Birds of Prey Vol. 1 and Final Crisis.

Barbara Gordon thinks that, for a genius, she's pretty dumb.

The Joker is insane, but she must be, too. Why else would she keep trying to control the web of contingencies flickering on her holographic display? She can't save everyone. She can't even save herself.

After the Joker killed Batgirl, she was reborn as Oracle. Now Oracle is dead, by her own hand, and Barbara is waiting to be reborn again. But not everyone is so lucky.

Every time she has failed, and she has failed a lot, she has been sure that Bruce would have found a way to succeed. After Bane broke his back, he found a way to walk again, and some part of her thinks he'll walk his way out of this, too. Their world is undeniably strange. Time's arrow flips inexplicably. There are misunderstood alien physiologies, highly advanced technologies, even magic. But no one can live forever, not even Ra's al Ghul. There are reprieves, there are delays, but there is no cure. Her father is old, and even if all the friends and lovers she's ever had weren't compelled to put their bodies between innocents and danger, someday everyone she loves will be gone.

She knows this. But it is so monstrous she cannot accept it, and it hurts.

She knows, too, that it is monstrous because she thinks it is. It hurts because she cannot accept that death is not a disease to be cured. Before she became Batgirl, she had a sensei who talked about ordinary mind, no-mind. It didn't make much sense to her, but it didn't have to: she experienced it in combat. She punched and did not stop to think, "I hit him," or even, "I hit him and he's going to hit back," but punched and blocked and punched without thinking. But her battles aren't fought with fists anymore; all she has is her mind, and while there are several things she's good at not thinking about, she's not good at not-thinking.

But if there's one thing Barbara's good at, it's sitting, and she thinks she'll try that for awhile.


End file.
